Sometime ago posted a topic on a very large Lincoln collection a friend gave to me.The coins came in three two pound coffee cans and one antique quart canning jars. All total there were well over 12,000 coins in the containers. After sorting and checking all the coins for the good, bad and the ugly, and consequently for the errors I was left with a great number of coins I did not plan to use. In one of these pictures you can see examples of how badly corroded and useless over 2,000 of the coins were. Out of desperation I decided to find a way to clean the coins at least roll them and trade them into our bank. The bad and ugly cents were treated to a very good bath of boiling water and baking soda. Simply heat the water to a nice rolling boil and start adding cents. After all the cents are in the pan and the water is again rolling, begin adding large spoons full of baking soda. Keep adding the soda and boiling until you can see the green and icky junk in the water. Once this is done you can empty the contents into a colander and rinse thoroughly with tap water, and again thoroughly with distilled water. What came out of the mix (not exactly the same coins in each picture) but are examples of what the majority of the coins turned out to be. Grant you, these coins are 'cleaned' and not collectable as such, but you will not find a scouring mark, or loss of the natural cartwheel affect on any of the coins due to use of harsh chemicals. And, I do not recommend this if these are coins you hope to keep and resell. And, you just might come out with some brilliantly toned coins. In this case, for the most part, it is a win-win situation. jeankay
I soaked some nasty crusties in olive oil for a few weeks, hoping it would stop it. I cleaned off the oil by dipping them in boiling water with a little baking soda like jeankay did, but I got mixed results. Some good, some bad. Mostly, I found the coins took on an unnatural sheen... almost like they were coated in plastic. It may have been the oil, so I may try another test.
I had them soaking in oil for a few weeks, then I let the excess oil drip off them before I placed them in a colinder that I flattened out and lined with coffee filters (the closest thing I had to cheesecloth). Then I just placed the colinder in a boiling pot of water for a few minutes, rinsed them with tap water and distilled water, then patted them dry. Like I said, I only had them in the boiling water for a few minutes and I didn't add much baking soda, but I did put in one old Indian Head penny that was pretty much all green. While in the oil, it went back to a dark brown colour, but after being boiled and dried it quickly went back to mostly green again. One thing that DID happen was a lot of dirt came off the coins and as you know that's not always a good thing, especially with pennies. In same cases it worked nicely... in others you can clearly see bright copper spots where the dirt used to be... not attractive!
To clean and not to clean Just so you know, this wasn't my novel idea. I had read it online somewhere and tried it on coins I showed in the first picture and came out with the ones in the second picture that I felt could be rolled and recirculated. I would never try to pass this off as real collectible or toned coins, nor would I use them in my collection or the albums I putting together for my grandkids. I posted the information on another forum sometime ago and discovered that it was a well-known Lincoln cent expert who had posted a similar suggestion on his website. I did use a double boiler for the first try, and a plain pot for the second cleaning. It didn't seem to matter to the coins which one I used. You got to admit it though, the cleaned coins are much more pleasing to the eye than the gunky ones. I never realized cents come in such amazing colors. jeankay
I don't mind trying a few experiments on my dirty pennies... if they're dirty or corroded to the point where I feel like I HAVE to do something about it, they're not worth much anyway. I just hate looking at a coin under a 10x loupe and then you scan across a big lump of green corrosion or cruddy dirt. Yuck. I read an eBay article, by a collector of ancients, on how to clean up your coins using hydrogen peroxide. I haven't tried it and not sure I would try it (lol), but it looks interesting. I'll post a link when I find it again.
One of the problems with coins being stored in such things as coffee cans is that you have two different metals in contact. That can create an electric current which doesn't do the coins any good. Get some moisture or water in there and now you have a REAL mess. I'm only passingly aware of the problem. We'd need a physical chemist to do a good explanation. But for the moment it's enough to know metal storage containers aren't good.
I have found that when you use a Stainless Steel Pot with a Colinder, the Colinder need's to be Porcelean Lined. The coins don't turn that dreaded black color. Rhubarb
They cleaned up nicely. I'm surpised no one has gotten mad becuase you cleaned worthless change...yet.
